The true and only practicable object of a polytechnic school is, as I conceive, the teaching, not of the minute details and manipulations of the arts, which can be done only in the workshop, but the inculcation of those scientific principles which form the basis and explanation of them, and along with this, a full and methodical review of all their leading processes and operations in connection with physical laws.[24]

MIT was informally called "Boston Tech".[30] The institute adopted the European polytechnic university model and emphasized laboratory instruction from an early date.[31] Despite chronic financial problems, the institute saw growth in the last two decades of the 19th century under President Francis Amasa Walker.[32] Programs in electrical, chemical, marine, and sanitary engineering were introduced,[33][34] new buildings were built, and the size of the student body increased to more than one thousand.[32]

The curriculum drifted to a vocational emphasis, with less focus on theoretical science.[35] The fledgling school still suffered from chronic financial shortages which diverted the attention of the MIT leadership. During these "Boston Tech" years, MIT faculty and alumni rebuffed Harvard University president (and former MIT faculty) Charles W. Eliot's repeated attempts to merge MIT with Harvard College's Lawrence Scientific School.[36] There would be at least six attempts to absorb MIT into Harvard.[37] In its cramped Back Bay location, MIT could not afford to expand its overcrowded facilities, driving a desperate search for a new campus and funding. Eventually the MIT Corporation approved a formal agreement to merge with Harvard, over the vehement objections of MIT faculty, students, and alumni.[37] However, a 1917 decision by the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court effectively put an end to the merger scheme.[37]

Plaque in Building 6 honoring George Eastman, founder of Eastman Kodak, who was revealed as the anonymous "Mr. Smith" who helped maintain MIT's independence

In 1916, the MIT administration and the MIT charter crossed the Charles River on the ceremonial barge Bucentaur built for the occasion,[38][39] to signify MIT's move to a spacious new campus largely consisting of filled land on a mile-long tract along the Cambridge side of the Charles River.[40][41] The neoclassical "New Technology" campus was designed by William W. Bosworth[42] and had been funded largely by anonymous donations from a mysterious "Mr. Smith", starting in 1912. In January 1920, the donor was revealed to be the industrialist George Eastman of Rochester, New York, who had invented methods of film production and processing, and founded Eastman Kodak. Between 1912 and 1920, Eastman donated $20 million ($236.6 million in 2015 dollars) in cash and Kodak stock to MIT.[43]

Still, as late as 1949, the Lewis Committee lamented in its report on the state of education at MIT that "the Institute is widely conceived as basically a vocational school", a "partly unjustified" perception the committee sought to change. The report comprehensively reviewed the undergraduate curriculum, recommended offering a broader education, and warned against letting engineering and government-sponsored research detract from the sciences and humanities.[48][49] The School of Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences and the MIT Sloan School of Management were formed in 1950 to compete with the powerful Schools of Science and Engineering. Previously marginalized faculties in the areas of economics, management, political science, and linguistics emerged into cohesive and assertive departments by attracting respected professors and launching competitive graduate programs.[50][51] The School of Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences continued to develop under the successive terms of the more humanistically oriented presidents Howard W. Johnson and Jerome Wiesner between 1966 and 1980.[52]

...a special type of educational institution which can be defined as a university polarized around science, engineering, and the arts. We might call it a university limited in its objectives but unlimited in the breadth and the thoroughness with which it pursues these objectives.

These activities affected MIT profoundly. A 1949 report noted the lack of "any great slackening in the pace of life at the Institute" to match the return to peacetime, remembering the "academic tranquility of the prewar years", though acknowledging the significant contributions of military research to the increased emphasis on graduate education and rapid growth of personnel and facilities.[62] The faculty doubled and the graduate student body quintupled during the terms of Karl Taylor Compton, president of MIT between 1930 and 1948; James Rhyne Killian, president from 1948 to 1957; and Julius Adams Stratton, chancellor from 1952 to 1957, whose institution-building strategies shaped the expanding university. By the 1950s, MIT no longer simply benefited the industries with which it had worked for three decades, and it had developed closer working relationships with new patrons, philanthropic foundations and the federal government.[63]

In late 1960s and early 1970s, student and faculty activists protested against the Vietnam War and MIT's defense research.[64][65] In this period MIT's various departments were researching helicopters, smart bombs and counterinsurgency techniques for the war in Vietnam as well as guidance systems for nuclear missiles.[66] The Union of Concerned Scientists was founded on March 4, 1969 during a meeting of faculty members and students seeking to shift the emphasis on military research toward environmental and social problems.[67] MIT ultimately divested itself from the Instrumentation Laboratory and moved all classified research off-campus to the MIT Lincoln Laboratory facility in 1973 in response to the protests.[68][69] The student body, faculty, and administration remained comparatively unpolarized during what was a tumultuous time for many other universities.[64] Johnson was seen to be highly successful in leading his institution to "greater strength and unity" after these times of turmoil.[70] However six MIT students were sentenced to prison terms at this time and some former student leaders, such as Michael Albert and George Katsiaficas, are still indignant about MIT's role in military research and its suppression of these protests.[71] (Richard Leacock's film, November Actions, records some of these tumultuous events.[72])

In the 1980s, there was more controversy at MIT over its involvement in SDI (space weaponry) and CBW (chemical and biological warfare) research.[73] More recently, MIT’s research for the military has included work on robots, drones and ‘battle suits’.[74]

The MIT Media Lab houses researchers developing novel uses of computer technology. Shown here is the 1982 building, designed by I.M. Pei, with an extension (right of photo) designed by Fumihiko Maki opened in March 2010.

In 2001, inspired by the open source and open access movements,[88] MIT launched OpenCourseWare to make the lecture notes, problem sets, syllabuses, exams, and lectures from the great majority of its courses available online for no charge, though without any formal accreditation for coursework completed.[89] While the cost of supporting and hosting the project is high,[90] OCW expanded in 2005 to include other universities as a part of the OpenCourseWare Consortium, which currently includes more than 250 academic institutions with content available in at least six languages.[91] In 2011, MIT announced it would offer formal certification (but not credits or degrees) to online participants completing coursework in its "MITx" program, for a modest fee.[92] The "edX" online platform supporting MITx was initially developed in partnership with Harvard and its analogous "Harvardx" initiative. The courseware platform is open source, and other universities have already joined and added their own course content.[93]

Three days after the Boston Marathon bombing of April 2013, MIT Police patrol officer Sean Collier was fatally shot by the suspects Dzhokhar and Tamerlan Tsarnaev, setting off a violent manhunt that shut down the campus and much of the Boston metropolitan area for a day.[94] One week later, Collier's memorial service was attended by more than 10,000 people, in a ceremony hosted by the MIT community with thousands of police officers from the New England region and Canada.[95][96][97] On November 25, 2013, MIT announced the creation of the Collier Medal, to be awarded annually to "an individual or group that embodies the character and qualities that Officer Collier exhibited as a member of the MIT community and in all aspects of his life". The announcement further stated that "Future recipients of the award will include those whose contributions exceed the boundaries of their profession, those who have contributed to building bridges across the community, and those who consistently and selflessly perform acts of kindness".[98][99][100]

The central and eastern sections of MIT's campus as seen from above Massachusetts Avenue and the Charles River. Left of center is the Great Dome overlooking Killian Court, with Kendall Square to the upper right.

The KendallMBTA Red Line station is located on the northeastern edge of the campus, in Kendall Square. The Cambridge neighborhoods surrounding MIT are a mixture of high tech companies occupying both modern office and rehabilitated industrial buildings, as well as socio-economically diverse residential neighborhoods.[103][104] In early 2016, MIT presented its updated Kendall Square Initiative to the City of Cambridge, with plans for mixed-use educational, retail, residential, startup incubator, and office space in a dense high-rise transit-oriented development plan.[105][106] The MIT Museum will eventually be moved immediately adjacent to a Kendall Square subway entrance, joining the List Visual Arts Center on the eastern end of the campus.[106][107]

Each building at MIT has a number (possibly preceded by a W, N, E, or NW) designation and most have a name as well. Typically, academic and office buildings are referred to primarily by number while residence halls are referred to by name. The organization of building numbers roughly corresponds to the order in which the buildings were built and their location relative (north, west, and east) to the original center cluster of Maclaurin buildings.[108] Many of the buildings are connected above ground as well as through an extensive network of underground tunnels, providing protection from the Cambridge weather as well as a venue for roof and tunnel hacking.[109][110]

MIT's on-campus nuclear reactor[111] is one of the most powerful university-based nuclear reactors in the United States. The prominence of the reactor's containment building in a densely populated area has been controversial,[112] but MIT maintains that it is well-secured.[113] In 1999 Bill Gates donated US$20 million to MIT for the construction of a computer laboratory named the "William H. Gates Building", and designed by architect Frank Gehry. While Microsoft had previously given financial support to the institution, this was the first personal donation received from Gates.[114]

Other notable campus facilities include a pressurized wind tunnel and a towing tank for testing ship and ocean structure designs.[115][116] MIT's campus-wide wireless network was completed in the fall of 2005 and consists of nearly 3,000 access points covering 9,400,000 square feet (870,000 m2) of campus.[117]

The MIT Police with state and local authorities, in the 2009-2011 period, have investigated reports of 12 forcible sex offenses, 6 robberies, 3 aggravated assaults, 164 burglaries, 1 case of arson, and 4 cases of motor vehicle theft on campus; affecting a community of around 22,000 students and employees.[121]

MIT has substantial commercial real estate holdings in Cambridge on which it pays property taxes, plus an additional voluntary payment in lieu of taxes (PILOT) on academic buildings which are legally tax-exempt. As of 2017[update], it is the largest taxpayer in the city, contributing approximately 14% of the city's annual revenues.[122] Holdings include Technology Square, parts of Kendall Square, and many properties in Cambridgeport and Area 4 neighboring the educational buildings.[123] The land is held for investment purposes and potential long-term expansion.

MIT's School of Architecture, now the School of Architecture and Planning, was the first in the United States,[124] and it has a history of commissioning progressive buildings.[125][126] The first buildings constructed on the Cambridge campus, completed in 1916, are sometimes called the "Maclaurin buildings" after Institute president Richard Maclaurin who oversaw their construction. Designed by William Welles Bosworth, these imposing buildings were built of reinforced concrete, a first for a non-industrial – much less university – building in the US.[127] Bosworth's design was influenced by the City Beautiful Movement of the early 1900s,[127] and features the Pantheon-esque Great Dome housing the Barker Engineering Library. The Great Dome overlooks Killian Court, where graduation ceremonies are held each year. The friezes of the limestone-clad buildings around Killian Court are engraved with the names of important scientists and philosophers.[a] The spacious Building 7 atrium at 77 Massachusetts Avenue is regarded as the entrance to the Infinite Corridor and the rest of the campus.[104]

Undergraduates are guaranteed four-year housing in one of MIT's 12 undergraduate dormitories.[137] Those living on campus can receive support and mentoring from live-in graduate student tutors, resident advisors, and faculty housemasters.[138] Because housing assignments are made based on the preferences of the students themselves, diverse social atmospheres can be sustained in different living groups; for example, according to the Yale Daily News staff's The Insider's Guide to the Colleges, 2010, "The split between East Campus and West Campus is a significant characteristic of MIT. East Campus has gained a reputation as a thriving counterculture."[139] MIT also has 5 dormitories for single graduate students and 2 apartment buildings on campus for married student families.[140]

MIT has an active Greek and co-op housing system, including thirty-six fraternities, sororities, and independent living groups (FSILGs).[141] As of 2015[update], 98% of all undergraduates lived in MIT-affiliated housing; 54% of the men participated in fraternities and 20% of the women were involved in sororities.[142] Most FSILGs are located across the river in Back Bay near where MIT was founded, and there is also a cluster of fraternities on MIT's West Campus that face the Charles River Basin.[143] After the 1997 alcohol-related death of Scott Krueger, a new pledge at the Phi Gamma Delta fraternity, MIT required all freshmen to live in the dormitory system starting in 2002.[144] Because FSILGs had previously housed as many as 300 freshmen off-campus, the new policy could not be implemented until Simmons Hall opened in that year.[145]

Lobby 7 (at 77 Massachusetts Avenue) is regarded as the main entrance to campus

MIT is chartered as a non-profit organization and is owned and governed by a privately appointed board of trustees known as the MIT Corporation.[146] The current board consists of 43 members elected to five-year terms,[147] 25 life members who vote until their 75th birthday,[148] 3 elected officers (President, Treasurer, and Secretary),[149] and 4 ex officio members (the president of the alumni association, the Governor of Massachusetts, the Massachusetts Secretary of Education, and the Chief Justice of the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court).[150][151] The board is chaired by Robert Millard, a co-founder of L-3 Communications Holdings.[152][153] The Corporation approves the budget, new programs, degrees and faculty appointments, and elects the President to serve as the chief executive officer of the university and preside over the Institute's faculty.[104][154] MIT's endowment and other financial assets are managed through a subsidiary called MIT Investment Management Company (MITIMCo).[155] Valued at $13.182 billion in 2016, MIT's endowment is the sixth-largest among American colleges and universities.[3]

MIT is a large, highly residential, research university with a majority of enrollments in graduate and professional programs.[162] The university has been accredited by the New England Association of Schools and Colleges since 1929.[163][164] MIT operates on a 4–1–4 academic calendar with the fall semester beginning after Labor Day and ending in mid-December, a 4-week "Independent Activities Period" in the month of January, and the spring semester beginning in early February and ending in late May.[165]

MIT students refer to both their majors and classes using numbers or acronyms alone.[166] Departments and their corresponding majors are numbered in the approximate order of their foundation; for example, Civil and Environmental Engineering is Course 1, while Linguistics and Philosophy is Course 24.[167] Students majoring in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science (EECS), the most popular department, collectively identify themselves as "Course 6". MIT students use a combination of the department's course number and the number assigned to the class to identify their subjects; the introductory calculus-based classical mechanics course is simply "8.01" at MIT.[168][c]

The four-year, full-time undergraduate program maintains a balance between professional majors and those in the arts and sciences, and has been dubbed "most selective" by U.S. News,[171] admitting few transfer students[162] and 8.0% of its applicants in the 2015 admissions cycle.[172] MIT offers 44 undergraduate degrees across its five schools.[173] In the 2010–2011 academic year, 1,161 bachelor of science degrees (abbreviated "SB") were granted, the only type of undergraduate degree MIT now awards.[needs update][174][175] In the 2011 fall term, among students who had designated a major, the School of Engineering was the most popular division, enrolling 63% of students in its 19 degree programs, followed by the School of Science (29%), School of Humanities, Arts, & Social Sciences (3.7%), Sloan School of Management (3.3%), and School of Architecture and Planning (2%).[needs update] The largest undergraduate degree programs were in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science (Course 6–2), Computer Science and Engineering (Course 6–3), Mechanical Engineering (Course 2), Physics (Course 8), and Mathematics (Course 18).[169]

All undergraduates are required to complete a core curriculum called the General Institute Requirements (GIRs).[176] The Science Requirement, generally completed during freshman year as prerequisites for classes in science and engineering majors, comprises two semesters of physics, two semesters of calculus, one semester of chemistry, and one semester of biology. There is a Laboratory Requirement, usually satisfied by an appropriate class in a course major. The Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences (HASS) Requirement consists of eight semesters of classes in the humanities, arts, and social sciences, including at least one semester from each division as well as the courses required for a designated concentration in a HASS division. Under the Communication Requirement, two of the HASS classes, plus two of the classes taken in the designated major must be "communication-intensive",[177] including "substantial instruction and practice in oral presentation".[178] Finally, all students are required to complete a swimming test;[179] non-varsity athletes must also take four quarters of physical education classes.[176]

Most classes rely on a combination of lectures, recitations led by associate professors or graduate students, weekly problem sets ("p-sets"), and periodic quizzes or tests. While the pace and difficulty of MIT coursework has been compared to "drinking from a fire hose",[180][181] the freshmen retention rate at MIT is similar to other research universities.[171] The "pass/no-record" grading system relieves some pressure for first-year undergraduates. For each class taken in the fall term, freshmen transcripts will either report only that the class was passed, or otherwise not have any record of it. In the spring term, passing grades (A, B, C) appear on the transcript while non-passing grades are again not recorded.[182] (Grading had previously been "pass/no record" all freshman year, but was amended for the Class of 2006 to prevent students from gaming the system by completing required major classes in their freshman year.[183]) Also, freshmen may choose to join alternative learning communities, such as Experimental Study Group, Concourse, or Terrascope.[182]

In 1970, the then-Dean of Institute Relations, Benson R. Snyder, published The Hidden Curriculum, arguing that education at MIT was often slighted in favor of following a set of unwritten expectations, and that graduating with good grades was more often the product of figuring out the system rather than a solid education. The successful student, according to Snyder, was the one who was able to discern which of the formal requirements were to be ignored in favor of which unstated norms. For example, organized student groups had compiled "course bibles"—collections of problem-set and examination questions and answers for later students to use as references. This sort of gamesmanship, Snyder argued, hindered development of a creative intellect and contributed to student discontent and unrest.[189][190]

Robert Engman's Möbius Strip hanging from the crown of the Barker Engineering Library's reading room located inside the Great Dome. As of 2013, it has been removed.

MIT's graduate program has high coexistence with the undergraduate program, and many courses are taken by qualified students at both levels. MIT offers a comprehensive doctoral program with degrees in the humanities, social sciences, and STEM fields as well as professional degrees.[162] The Institute offers graduate programs leading to academic degrees such as the Master of Science (MS), various Engineer's Degrees, Doctor of Philosophy (PhD), and Doctor of Science (ScD) and interdisciplinary graduate programs such as the MD-PhD (with Harvard Medical School).[191][192]

Admission to graduate programs is decentralized; applicants apply directly to the department or degree program. More than 90% of doctoral students are supported by fellowships, research assistantships (RAs), or teaching assistantships (TAs).[193]

MIT awarded 1,547 master's degrees and 609 doctoral degrees in the academic year 2010–11.[needs update][174] In the 2011 fall term, the School of Engineering was the most popular academic division, enrolling 45.0% of graduate students, followed by the Sloan School of Management (19%), School of Science (16.9%), School of Architecture and Planning (9.2%), Whitaker College of Health Sciences (5.1%),[d] and School of Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences (4.7%). The largest graduate degree programs were the Sloan MBA, Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, and Mechanical Engineering.[169]

In 2014, Money magazine ranked MIT as third in the US "Best Colleges for Your Money", based on its assessment of "the most bang for your tuition buck", factoring in quality of education, affordability, and career outcomes.[206] As of 2014[update], Forbes magazine rated MIT as the second "Most Entrepreneurial University", based on the percentage of alumni and students self-identifying as founders or business owners on LinkedIn.[207] In 2015, Brookings Fellow Jonathan Rothwell issued a report "Beyond College Rankings", placing MIT as third in the US, with an estimated 45% value-added to mid-career salary.[208]

The university historically pioneered research and training collaborations between academia, industry and government.[210][211] In 1946, President Compton, Harvard Business School professor Georges Doriot, and Massachusetts Investor Trust chairman Merrill Grisswold founded American Research and Development Corporation, the first American venture-capital firm.[212][213] In 1948, Compton established the MIT Industrial Liaison Program.[214] Throughout the late 1980s and early 1990s, American politicians and business leaders accused MIT and other universities of contributing to a declining economy by transferring taxpayer-funded research and technology to international – especially Japanese – firms that were competing with struggling American businesses.[215][216] On the other hand, MIT's extensive collaboration with the federal government on research projects has led to several MIT leaders serving as presidential scientific advisers since 1940.[e] MIT established a Washington Office in 1991 to continue effective lobbying for research funding and national science policy.[218][219]

The U.S. Justice Department began an investigation in 1989, and in 1991 filed an antitrust suit against MIT, the eight Ivy League colleges, and eleven other institutions for allegedly engaging in price-fixing during their annual "Overlap Meetings", which were held to prevent bidding wars over promising prospective students from consuming funds for need-based scholarships.[220][221] While the Ivy League institutions settled,[222] MIT contested the charges, arguing that the practice was not anti-competitive because it ensured the availability of aid for the greatest number of students.[223][224] MIT ultimately prevailed when the Justice Department dropped the case in 1994.[225][226]

The mass-market magazine Technology Review is published by MIT through a subsidiary company, as is a special edition that also serves as an alumni magazine.[230][231] The MIT Press is a major university press, publishing over 200 books and 30 journals annually, emphasizing science and technology as well as arts, architecture, new media, current events, and social issues.[232]

The MIT library system consists of five subject libraries: Barker (Engineering), Dewey (Economics), Hayden (Humanities and Science), Lewis (Music), and Rotch (Arts and Architecture). There are also various specialized libraries and archives. The libraries contain more than 2.9 million printed volumes, 2.4 million microforms, 49,000 print or electronic journal subscriptions, and 670 reference databases. The past decade has seen a trend of increased focus on digital over print resources in the libraries.[233] Notable collections include the Lewis Music Library with an emphasis on 20th and 21st-century music and electronic music,[234] the List Visual Arts Center's rotating exhibitions of contemporary art,[235] and the Compton Gallery's cross-disciplinary exhibitions.[236] MIT allocates a percentage of the budget for all new construction and renovation to commission and support its extensive public art and outdoor sculpture collection.[237][238]

The MIT Museum was founded in 1971 and collects, preserves, and exhibits artifacts significant to the culture and history of MIT. The museum now engages in significant educational outreach programs for the general public, including the annual Cambridge Science Festival, the first celebration of this kind in the United States. Since 2005, its official mission has been, "to engage the wider community with MIT's science, technology and other areas of scholarship in ways that will best serve the nation and the world in the 21st century".[239]

Many upperclass students and alumni wear a large, heavy, distinctive class ring known as the "Brass Rat".[296][297] Originally created in 1929, the ring's official name is the "Standard Technology Ring."[298] The undergraduate ring design (a separate graduate student version exists as well) varies slightly from year to year to reflect the unique character of the MIT experience for that class, but always features a three-piece design, with the MIT seal and the class year each appearing on a separate face, flanking a large rectangular bezel bearing an image of a beaver.[296] The initialismIHTFP, representing the informal school motto "I Hate This Fucking Place" and jocularly euphemized as "I Have Truly Found Paradise," "Institute Has The Finest Professors," "It's Hard to Fondle Penguins," and other variations, has occasionally been featured on the ring given its historical prominence in student culture.[299]

MIT enrolled 4,384 undergraduates and 6,510 graduate students in 2011–2012.[needs update][169] Women constituted 45 percent of undergraduate students.[needs update][169][319] Undergraduate and graduate students were drawn from all 50 states as well as 115 foreign countries.[320]

MIT received 17,909 applications for admission to the undergraduate Class of 2015; 1,742 were admitted (9.7 percent) and 1128 enrolled (64.8 percent).[needs update][142] 19,446 applications were received for graduate and advanced degree program across all departments; 2,991 were admitted (15.4 percent) and 1,880 enrolled (62.8 percent).[needs update][321]

The interquartile range on the SAT was 2090–2340 and 97 percent of students ranked in the top tenth of their high school graduating class.[needs update][142] 97 percent of the Class of 2012 returned as sophomores; 82 percent of the Class of 2007 graduated within 4 years, and 93 percent (91 percent of the men and 95 percent of the women) graduated within 6 years.[142][322]

Undergraduate tuition and fees total $40,732 and annual expenses are estimated at $52,507 as of 2012.[needs update] 62 percent of students received need-based financial aid in the form of scholarships and grants from federal, state, institutional, and external sources averaging $38,964 per student.[needs update][323] Students were awarded a total of $102 million in scholarships and grants, primarily from institutional support ($84 million).[142] The annual increase in expenses has led to a student tradition (dating back to the 1960s) of tongue-in-cheek "tuition riots".[324]

MIT has been nominally co-educational since admitting Ellen Swallow Richards in 1870. Richards also became the first female member of MIT's faculty, specializing in sanitary chemistry.[325][326] Female students remained a minority prior to the completion of the first wing of a women's dormitory, McCormick Hall, in 1963.[327][328][329] Between 1993 and 2009, the proportion of women rose from 34 percent to 45 percent of undergraduates and from 20 percent to 31 percent of graduate students.[169][330] Women currently outnumber men in Biology, Brain & Cognitive Sciences, Architecture, Urban Planning, and Biological Engineering.[169][319]

A number of student deaths in the late 1990s and early 2000s resulted in considerable media attention to MIT's culture and student life.[331][332] After the alcohol-related death of Scott Krueger in September 1997 as a new member at the Phi Gamma Delta fraternity,[333] MIT began requiring all freshmen to live in the dormitory system.[333][334] The 2000 suicide of MIT undergraduate Elizabeth Shin drew attention to suicides at MIT and created a controversy over whether MIT had an unusually high suicide rate.[335][336] In late 2001 a task force's recommended improvements in student mental health services were implemented,[337][338] including expanding staff and operating hours at the mental health center.[339] These and later cases were significant as well because they sought to prove the negligence and liability of university administrators in loco parentis.[335]

As of 2013[update], MIT had 1,030 faculty members, of whom 225 were women.[4] Faculty are responsible for lecturing classes, advising both graduate and undergraduate students, and sitting on academic committees, as well as conducting original research. Between 1964 and 2009, a total of seventeen faculty and staff members affiliated with MIT were awarded Nobel Prizes (thirteen in the last 25 years).[340]MIT faculty members past or present have won a total of twenty-seven Nobel Prizes, the majority in Economics or Physics.[341] As of October 2013[update], among current faculty and teaching staff there are 67 Guggenheim Fellows, 6 Fulbright Scholars, and 22 MacArthur Fellows.[4] Faculty members who have made extraordinary contributions to their research field as well as the MIT community are granted appointments as Institute Professors for the remainder of their tenures.

A 1998 MIT study concluded that a systemic bias against female faculty existed in its School of Science,[342] although the study's methods were controversial.[343][344] Since the study, though, women have headed departments within the Schools of Science and of Engineering, and MIT has appointed several female vice presidents, although allegations of sexism continue to be made.[345]Susan Hockfield, a molecular neurobiologist, was MIT's president from 2004 to 2012 and was the first woman to hold the post.[161]

Tenure outcomes have vaulted MIT into the national spotlight on several occasions. The 1984 dismissal of David F. Noble, a historian of technology, became a cause célèbre about the extent to which academics are granted freedom of speech after he published several books and papers critical of MIT's and other research universities' reliance upon financial support from corporations and the military.[346] Former materials science professor Gretchen Kalonji sued MIT in 1994 alleging that she was denied tenure because of sexual discrimination. Several years later, the lawsuit was settled with undisclosed payments, and establishment of a project to encourage women and minorities to seek faculty positions.[345][347][348] In 1997, the Massachusetts Commission Against Discrimination issued a probable cause finding supporting UMass Boston Professor James Jennings' allegations of racial discrimination after a senior faculty search committee in the Department of Urban Studies and Planning did not offer him reciprocal tenure.[349]

In 2006–2007, MIT's denial of tenure to African-American stem cell scientist professor James Sherley reignited accusations of racism in the tenure process, eventually leading to a protracted public dispute with the administration, a brief hunger strike, and the resignation of Professor Frank L. Douglas in protest.[350][351]The Boston Globe reported on February 6, 2007: "Less than half of MIT's junior faculty members are granted tenure. After Sherley was initially denied tenure, his case was examined three times before the university established that neither racial discrimination nor conflict of interest affected the decision. Twenty-one of Sherley's colleagues later issued a statement saying that the professor was treated fairly in tenure review."[352]

As of 2017[update], MIT was the second-largest employer in the city of Cambridge.[122] Based on feedback from employees, MIT was ranked #7 as a place to work, among US colleges and universities as of 2013[update].[358] Surveys cited a "smart", "creative", "friendly" environment, noting that the work-life balance tilts towards a "strong work ethic" but complaining about "low pay" compared to an industry position.[359]

^Course numbers are sometimes presented in Roman numerals, e.g. "Course XVIII" for mathematics.[169] At least one MIT style guide now discourages this usage.[170] Also, some Course numbers have been re-assigned over time, so that the subject area of a degree may depend on the year it was awarded.[167]

^ abcMorgan, John. "Top Six Universities Dominate THE World Reputation Rankings". "The rankings suggest that the top six - Harvard University, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the University of Cambridge, University of California, Berkeley, Stanford University and the University of Oxford - form a group of globally recognised "super brands".

^ abc"Massachusetts Institute of Technology". Encyclopedia.com. It has long been recognized as an outstanding technological institute and its Sloan School of Management has notable programs in business, economics, and finance.

^Lecuyer, Christophe (1992). "The making of a science based technological university: Karl Compton, James Killian, and the reform of MIT, 1930–1957". Historical Studies in the Physical and Biological Sciences. 23 (1): 153–180. doi:10.2307/27757693.

^Warsh, David (June 1, 1999). "A tribute to MIT's Howard Johnson". The Boston Globe. Retrieved April 4, 2007. At a critical time in the late 1960s, Johnson stood up to the forces of campus rebellion at MIT. Many university presidents were destroyed by the troubles. Only Edward Levi, University of Chicago president, had comparable success guiding his institution to a position of greater strength and unity after the turmoil.

^Coughlan, Sean (15 September 2014). "What makes a global top 10 university?". BBC News. It's the third year in a row that [MIT] … has been top of the QS World University Rankings. The biggest single factor in the QS rankings is academic reputation … calculated by surveying more than 60,000 academics… Universities with an established name and a strong brand are likely to do better.

^"A Survey of New England: A Concentration of Talent". The Economist. August 8, 1987. MIT for a long time... stood virtually alone as a university that embraced rather than shunned industry.

^Roberts, Edward B. (1991). "An Environment for Entrepreneurs". MIT: Shaping the Future. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. ISBN0262631415. The war made necessary the formation of new working coalitions... between these technologists and government officials. These changes were especially noteworthy at MIT.

^Shlaes, Amity (May 14, 2008). "From the Ponderosa to the Googleplex: How Americans match money to ideas". State Department Press Release. U.S. Department of State. Griswold, [MIT president] Compton, and various politicians handpicked Doriot to head American Research & Development, a new firm that would invest in [the] small, innovative companies that had been underserved by traditional capital markets.

^Simon, Jane (July 1, 1985). "Route 128: How it developed, and why it's not likely to be duplicated". New England Business. Boston. p. 15. Compton co-founded in 1946 what is believed to be the nation's first venture capital company.… [He] and a group led by a Harvard professor [Doriot] founded one of the first venture capital companies, American Research & Development Corp.

^Bernanke, Ben S. (June 9, 2006). "2006 Commencement Speech at MIT". Archived from the original on October 7, 2006. Retrieved January 2, 2007. Mathematical approaches to economics have at times been criticized as lacking in practical value. Yet the MIT Economics Department has trained many economists who have played leading roles in government and in the private sector, including the current heads of four central banks: those of Chile, Bank of Israelsrael, Banca d'Italiataly, and, I might add, the 10=United States.

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